


The Great Storyteller

by Leanne221B



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: M/M, Tumblr
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-01-01
Updated: 2013-03-11
Packaged: 2017-12-04 22:43:11
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,444
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/715921
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Leanne221B/pseuds/Leanne221B
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sherlock was bored. Until the terrible and inexplicable murder of a teenage girl leads Sherlock and John in to a bizarre distraction.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

"Jesus, Sherlock. Look at her."

Sherlock was surveying the scene, his eyes glowing almost manically as he paced, muttering to himself.

Sherlock had been bored. That much John knew. The worst John had ever seen him; it had been almost a month without a case. Receiving the call to tell him that a young girl had been murdered had been so much of a relief that John worried he was becoming as bad as Sherlock himself. But he couldn't let that bother him for the moment – right now his mind was consumed by the horror of the scene; the "young girl" had turned out to be only sixteen. So young and baby faced. So covered in blood.

"And there's no clue as to why someone might have done it?" asked John.

"None at all" Lestrade stood shrugging from the doorway of the girl's bedroom. "Not exactly the type to have enemies though is she?"

"Everyone has enemies Lestrade, it's just that not everybody is aware of them." Sherlock piped up, not even looking up from his examination of the body. The other two just rolled their eyes, but John was certain he heard a muttered "freak" from one of the rooms nearby.

As had been happening a lot lately, John found himself just pause for a moment, and watch Sherlock work. The crease between his eyebrows, the strength of his gaze, the way the dim light and the shadows clung to his cheekbones as he bowed his head.

At a knowing smirk from Lestrade, John snapped out of it, shaking his head. He was always determined to banish such confusing lapses of self-control from his mind. As he did, something caught his eye.

"Sherlock?" He said walking slowly towards the desk in the corner of the room.

"Her laptop, it's – well it's still switched on. She must have been using it when she was attacked."

Sherlock glanced up at John and his eyes flicked from the laptop to the girl. "Yes, she spent a lot of time at her desk, but not working – look at her elbows, she's been putting a lot of pressure on them, possibly leaning on a desk. And while she only has a little acne, the girl was a teenager after all, it's more prominent around the cheekbones, she's clearly been resting her face in her hands a lot. Not the sort of thing a person does when they're actually getting any work done. Her short sightedness at her age would probably be a result of over-exposure to a screen possibly television or computer. I'm led to believe the latter going off her fingers."

Lestrade just shook his head and walked away, probably to go and talk to someone who spoke a more recognisable language.

"Her fingers." John said, working to keep the incredulity out of his voice. He should be used to it by now. It wasn't really a question, but Sherlock didn't need much prodding.

"Yes John, her fingers! Look at them. Anyone can tell just by looking about the room that she's a writer, and that's on top of homework and such things, but look at her fingers! She doesn't have a writer's bump. No coarse skin or ink smudges. She's clearly fond of typing her work. Presumably because she's a fast typer - probably gets a lot of practice. In short, John, you need to go and look at her computer."

John didn't even have an answer ready, he just walked up to her laptop and opened the browser. First stop: internet history.

"Anything could be useful. Social networking, E-mails. Look for sites she visits regularly. Google search history. If this girl spent so much time in front of her computer, it's safe to assume that anything that might be important enough to get her killed can be found on there." Sherlock rested on the back of the chair John was sat on, watching over his shoulder. It was far too distracting.

"Here. Wow. She visits this website a lot. Most visited. Several times a day. 'suppose we should look there then. I've never heard of it actually. Tumblr. Weird."


	2. Chapter 2

It took John about two seconds for the picture to register in his mind.

"Nope! No! what – nope!" He shut the laptop lid quickly and looked away, as though he could un-see the watercolour painting that had just appeared on the screen. He could feel Sherlock's gaze fixed on him but he couldn't look him in the eye.

"Something frighten you, John?" Sherlock mocked, but John just glared at him. Sherlock hadn't seen the picture. "John, we're never going to find the murderer if you flinch at every – Oh, is that you?"

He had lifted the lid of the laptop and had his head tilted to the side, trying to interpret the picture. "Wait, is that your – and me! Well, that's a bit -"

John could feel the colour and heat rise in his face and he scrolled down determinedly before Sherlock could finish, as far from the picture he could go. He saw several other pictures, some from TV shows and films that he recognised, and a good many of Sherlock from the newspapers. And then there was more fan art. Far too much in John's opinion.

"I think these people read your blog, John." Sherlock sneered before he turned away.

Horrified and intrigued in equal measure, John continued to scroll down, although he was certain by now that this website held no answers for them. He had all but forgotten his surroundings when Lestrade entered the room. Slamming the laptop closed he jumped back from the seat, almost knocking over Sherlock. Lestrade raised an eyebrow as John realised just how guilty that had looked.

"We're finishing up here you two, you need to go."

"Wait! No, I um-" John frowned at the laptop for a moment, shook his head and finished with "We need the laptop. Might help."

John didn't turn the laptop back on for a while after they returned to 221B, he wanted to wait until Sherlock was out. For Sherlock's sake of course, he was always so awkward around things like that. John could handle it though, it wasn't as though he was awkward about sex. He was completely comfortable with his sexuality. He was straight. It didn't bother him. Yes… Entirely for Sherlock's sake.

And John continued to tell himself that until Sherlock left again a few hours later, against Anderson's instructions, to snoop around in the garden of the girl's house to support his theory that the killer had gotten in through the window. He watched Sherlock's cab leave through the window, and headed straight for the laptop lying on the coffee table.

He spent hours on the teenage girl's laptop that night, trying to laugh off the in-depth analyses of every photograph in which him and Sherlock happen to be making eye contact. It was in those hours that John learned several things. The first was the verb "to ship." The second was that the internet severely over-estimated the size of his penis, and finally John learned that the entirety of the internet were all, to varying degrees, sexually frustrated and gay. He was just about to shut the laptop, no longer uncomfortable, just amused and a little bit lightheaded (some of the better photographs of Sherlock had caught him off guard) when he stumbled across the fanfiction…

"Sherlock dear! It's so late! What are you doing coming home at this hour?"

Mrs Hudson's voice travelled up the stairs just as the front door slammed shut. John quickly tucked the laptop away and hurried off to bed. He didn't quite fancy being left alone with Sherlock right now, although he wasn't so sure why.

"John?"

Sherlock's voice woke him the next morning, calling from the living room.

"What do you want Sherlock?" John muttered back in to his pillow, assuming he just wanted him to pass him a pen or something. Sherlock just repeated his name, but with more urgency. Assuming it had something to do with the case, John dressed quickly, trying to shake away the strangely good dream he'd been having.

"What do you – Sherlock, why have you been reading - ?" John came striding in to the room, his heart skipping a beat as spotted the laptop, the fanfiction up in the background, Sherlock hunched over it.

"Look" was all Sherlock said. And his solemn expression pulled John's gaze from the terribly vivid story in the background, to the smaller window in the bottom corner. It was an instant messenger of some kind, and someone by the username of "The Great Storyteller" was typing.

"Hello Sherlock. Having fun? x."


End file.
